Sum of All Traumas
The founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud once claimed that ‘People consist of the sum of their traumas.’ He largely referred to childhood traumas, but he did not rule out teenage or even, perhaps, post-teenage ones. Childhood traumas are carved deeper though.
Imagine our psyche as a clay. The clay of our childhood is soft, so emotional & physical wounds and traumas can carve it deeper. The clay of our teenage years is of medium hardness. Hence traumas reach a modest depth. Finally our clay after our 20th year -on average- hardens further still; it can still be carved but it needs a stronger, sharper trauma. Even that should affect us less than a less severe childhood trauma.
The aforementioned traumas are usually emotional, but they can also be physical. I will largely focus on the first decade or so of our life in this piece. The emotional traumas of our childhood are commonly related to lack of love or care -or even outright neglect- by our parents, potential bullying at school and -believe it or not- the trauma of our first unrequited love in elementary school. Usually the first might lead to the second, since traumatized children tend to be more socially withdrawn, which acts like a red flag to bullying children.
Physical trauma stem from either non sexual or sexual abuse. Particularly during childhood, if something happens to a child that is very…
